For Those Of Us Who Don't Think Sasquatch Is Genus Homo...

[MIB]

Hmmmm ... not sure it's that cut and dried.   Someone, Jaime Avalos I think, has quite a few casts of oversized but human shaped tracks in places no human in their right mind (you don't need to say it I've already looked in that mirror ) would go barefoot including what he thinks are the tracks of a single individual found across a couple hundred miles.    I think there are pretty clear human tracks and there are pretty clear bigfoot tracks but, like Randy points to, there are some borderline human sized tracks that are ambiguous.   It's difficult to say much more than "well, that's interesting looking" definitively in those cases, anything else is over-committing.

 

Unfortunately, nature doesn't always play by our rules and expectations.  She just doesn't.  

 

MIB

[Guest DWA]

This may be true.  But the biggest single block to the science of this field is "this could, conceivably, in some universe, be a barefoot person or a hoax."

 

Maybe.  But that isn't the way to bet, particularly when so many tracks are almost certainly not.

 

And - once again - nothing like this is ever going to be accepted by the community as proof.  It is, however, way way more than sufficient reason to go full on science 24/7/365 on what is causing this to happen.

[JDL]

Does it matter?  When they're type classified, they'll decide to call them homo or pan or whatever, then redefine the required characteristics accordingly.

 

That said, if there's any truth at all to accounts of cross-breeding, they have to be homo.

[SWWASAS]

Like MIB and DWA I do look at remoteness of the location and if it very remote I always try to figure out what the track maker was doing there and what the circumstances were for making the print. A lake shore 1/2 mile from a human campground is likely to be a human that likes to feel mud between their toes unless that footprint exceeded the human norm, then I would look for signs of hoaxing first. In a truly remote location a large print gets my attention if the circumstances associated with it being laid down make sense. Do I then ring bells and declare BF existence proven? No I document and return soon because that print may indicate an active area. That is what I want to find. It's paid off so far.

[bipedalist]

Hmmmm ... not sure it's that cut and dried.   Someone, Jaime Avalos I think, has quite a few casts of oversized but human shaped tracks in places no human in their right mind (you don't need to say it I've already looked in that mirror ) would go barefoot including what he thinks are the tracks of a single individual found across a couple hundred miles.    I think there are pretty clear human tracks and there are pretty clear bigfoot tracks but, like Randy points to, there are some borderline human sized tracks that are ambiguous.   It's difficult to say much more than "well, that's interesting looking" definitively in those cases, anything else is over-committing.

 

Unfortunately, nature doesn't always play by our rules and expectations.  She just doesn't.  

 

MIB

 

 

Avalos posted a spring 2015 video showing inline prints from what seems like a human-like maker in snow in the high Sierras, distant shots, never did get to see them up close in the snow as I remember.  Sierra Sasquatch is his youtube handle.  Check it out. 

[David NC]

How many people are there in the United States and Canada that have "never" worn shoes? The tracks of someone that has worn shoes are very different from someone that has never worn any. People that have worn shoes, even for a short time have what would be described as a "moccasin" shape to their bare footprint.

 

 

 

 

[norseman]

Makes sense that your feet are going to adjust.

[WSA]

So anyway...to something more on topic.

I am especially intrigued about this hominoid's apparent need/drive to put their dead "away." Implications for our study of BF? Reasons? Probabilities? Does it focus anyone's attention on other mysteries, hmmm?

[Drew]

If they buried their dead, would this be the first instance of Abstract thought?  They were able to understand that when someone died they shouldn't be left in the field to be eaten out of respect or love?  Or was it simply a survival behavior?  They put the dead down there, because they understood that dead bodies attracted predators?

 

Hmmm.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Drew

[WSA]

I'm thinking, if this was a deliberate removal/placement of corpses in the cave, it would probably start as just a basic survival instinct, yes. Keeping predators out of the are would be the impetus.

 

There is a good NYT's guest op-ed piece this morning on thoughts about the discovery, and this was mentioned.

 

So far, there is no evidence of any grave goods. This would seem a basic requirement if  this internment was a spiritual practice.  I'll be anxious to see if any such turns up.

 

A larger point that could be made on the topic of a lack of BF remains. The idea that a putative BF is "clever" enough to hide its dead from prying H.sapiens has always seemed implausible to me. The idea of it being just a survival adaptation that is now hard-wired is much more plausible. If the BF evolved alongside mega-fauna like cave bears and saber-toothed cats, it would have been a smart move.  (Of course, if you co-exist with cave bears, you'll want to be very careful in which cave you go to stash your dead!)

[norseman]

If they buried their dead, would this be the first instance of Abstract thought?  They were able to understand that when someone died they shouldn't be left in the field to be eaten out of respect or love?  Or was it simply a survival behavior?  They put the dead down there, because they understood that dead bodies attracted predators?

 

Hmmm.

Doubtful that they were trying to stave off large predators in Africa. As we see with the Tvaso story, even moving the field hospital did not work. Lions were attacking a herd of humans and simply would not be denied.

Most likely this burial tradition starts with empathy of the dead of your own kind. If grandma dies, you do not want to experience mental anguish by watching the body being ripped apart so you threw her down a hole.

[WSA]

I don't know Norseman, I wouldn't think you'd ever want to avoid bivvying next to a bunch of festering corpses. Disposing of your dead certainly doesn't increase your chances of a predator or scavenger coming around, and most likely reduces those.  This presumes of course the troupe IS a sedentary one, and not one of nomadic hunter/gatherer/scavengers. 

 

There may also be a basic adaptation/understanding at work to just avoid pestilence. This is thought to be the evolutionary basis for our own "gag" reflex on smelling putrefied substances.  

 

It does make me wonder though why the easiest and best method wouldn't be to just trot grandma down to the nearest river and give her a Viking funeral of sorts. 

O.K., here's another theory. The cave site was actually a predator's larder. Chilled to 58 degrees for later enjoyment? 

[dmaker]

I read an interesting theory. If the dating reveals an overlap with HSS, then perhaps HSS placed the bodies in the cave.   Food for thought.

[Guest Stan Norton]

The fact that different age classes were found together may suggest a catastrophic one off event rather than mass burial.

[Guest ChasingRabbits]

Was this cave a cave when the corpses were originally placed there? I would think that some kind of geologic shifting/changing has taken place during the thousands of years they have lain there.